Welcome to the Jungle - Kanchanaburi , Thailand

Left for the jungle. We were expecting bus at 6:45 so we waited outside it got to 7 at which point I was beginning to think that it wasn't going to arrive. it got to about 7:50 by this point I was
talking about a wasted day sorting this out. Then a taxi rolled up (many taxis did this) he walked over to us and said something that made no sense to us (we assumed that he was trying to get us to go somewhere) after about a min we figured out this was the bus we were expecting and he apologised for being late. We were still not 100% when we got in but I thought what the hell! Our hunch turned out to right, he took us to a bus which is taking us to the jungle as I write this whilst listening to 'Welcome To The Jungle' amongst others in anticipation. First stop was a war museum and the bridge over the river Kwai, as we were late so didn't have long. We then took a train journey a few stops over a famous war time track seeing a famous wooden bridge, after that we were to visit our residence for the first time to have lunch. The place was awesome it was actually on the river, wow! Lunch was ok too :) next up was a trip to Saiyoknoi waterfall which was very busy as we had sometime to stay we decided to walk to the source which led us to an underground spring which had the most butterflies I have ever seen in one place. The best thing about this day happened to come
about 10 min before we finished our activities for the day. A Thai women was trying to give us a mat to put on the bamboo bench we said we were fine, which that though was funny, O btw Thai people seem to laugh a lot for some reason. Anywho, she came over and pointed at my knee (which had a bit of a scar) then started rubbing it, ok slightly uncomfortable now, then after trying to tell her it was just a scar she moved on to Ollie, she loved Ollie and he just had to give in to the fact he was being raped (it nearly killed me), I'll let Ollie explain the details. Back at the hostel we somehow wangled a room with air con even though we weren't expecting it, this was to the annoyance of a couple of Aussies (both massive druggies, one with an unhealthy obsession with Cher, yer he was an actual gay) and an Irish couple. I just guess that the English still rule across the world!

Hot days and Temples – Bangkok, Thailand

A latter start today due to tiredness and beer. We decided to follow the advise of Simon (the guy at the tourist info centre) and explore a couple of temples via a river boat. Oh it was a very warm day and shade was much needed during most of the day, remember we are English! We got a train to Saphan Taksin then a day boat ticket (about a tenth of the price of the proposed boat trip yesterday) to Tha Tien (the pier with the grand palace amongst other attractions). We visited the Wat Phra Chetuphon first. This was the first temple we had seen so we were very impressed by the architecture and the fact we got in free, this was accidental as we managed to wonder through the exit. Next up was the grand place which was a little walk in the heat of the day, yer that pretty much finished us off. We got to the place and couldn't be bothered to pay the fee to go inside so we explored the grounds before heading back to the boat but instead of getting the boat up river we went straight across to view the Wat Arun, this proved to be a good call and although we didn't get into this one free it was worth it for the views it gave us of Bangkok. After the temples we got back on the boat to a very western street in Bangkok called Khao San Rd, it reminded me of many streets in tourist towns in Europe. Here Ollie managed to get some malaria tablets. Yay! Also Chris amongst others would appreciate this but we decided to stop at bar by a stall playing Killing In The Name. We decided to get some food from the Market for the second time today and headed for the return boat via another bar. the rest of the evening was spent chilling ready for another early start!

Bangkok Dangerous - Arrival in Thailand. Bangkok.

We had to be up very early although I forgot to turn the alarm on luckily I had a backup for 5:55am! We left the hostel for the last time, this time not being bothered by someone trying to sell us a suit and more importantly trying to get us to stay in their ghetto flat. A slightly nervous wait for the bus given there wasn't a sign was ended speedily. When we arrived at the station we saw that we could check in our bags there. How useful, wait a second what if the bags don't get to Bangkok (oh well too late now). so we get our train followed by the flight a couple of hours later. For some reason my screen didn't work on certain channels so couldn't watch family guy or scrubs :(. When we arrived and our bags were there, I was relieved. We arrived at our hostel a little while after landing because of congestion and our lack of understanding of Thai bus drivers. The hostel itself was like a hotel really clean, having laptops, safes and more importantly a cheap bar! The plan was to figure out about visas and Bangkok in general, what actually happened was to walk about 100 metres then hear a voice "what are you looking for" it was some Thai women (a really big thanks goes to her) who directed us to a tourist information centre via a tuk-tuk which was in one word, interesting. At the tourist info centre we sorted our visas (eventually as I left my passport at the hostel) and pretty much our next 3 weeks. We booked a trip to Kanchanaburi for 3 days and 2 nights to explore a different side of Thailand seeing elephants, tigers and the river Kwai. After, our tuk-tuk driver took us a different route back and got us to stop in a suit shop while he got free fuel for doing so, we felt very awkward doing this. Next he said something about taking us to the river, we were like okay. It turned out he was trying to get us to go on a boat trip for 1000 baht each (just less than £20) we just told him we didn't have the time, lies I know but seriously these guys don't leave you alone. Having got back in the tuk-tuk telling him again that we just wanted to go back to the hotel he tried to take us to another shop, by this point I was getting pretty annoyed so refused to get out and asked if we could just go to the hostel, eventually he took us. Later that evening we went for another wonder to get some food and see the much talked about Patpong Rd. We got some Thai curries from a place need us for about £2 each! Then headed to Patpong it was about a 20 min walk when we got their some bloke said he would take us to his bar for a drink which apparently wasn't too far.... So we were following him for a while and he was telling us that a certain street was full of ladyboys (Nathan I can show you on a map) and another was for boys only. The longer it took the more we thought he is leading us to a dodgy place.... We were right, we got there and were greeted by several girls outside. The guy said we could have a free drink and just chat with girls but we just said no and eventually lost the guy when we went to a pub across the road. Eventually we ended up in a Irish bar (yes Shay, your people get everywhere) it had lots of sport on TV and a band which wasn't too bad. After we headed back and crashed out for the night.

Hong Kong Island – Kowloon / Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong

Started the day with a trip Kowloon park. The park had a nice pond area with flamingos and bird cages which had some very noisy parrots. We walked from the park to the harbour which was known as Hong Kong City which gave us a good view over to Hong Kong island. After this we
decided to get the boat over to Hong Kong island to visit Victoria peak but first a little walk to the tram which involved us walking past lots of boutiques one area we walked in was exclusively
Luis Vutton there were about 8 shops. It felt like it would be in complete contrast to the hawking in Kowloon in way we would be ushered away because we have no money. Before getting the tram to the peak we explored the Hong Kong island park which had an artificial waterfall and an aviary (mum you would have loved it) lots of birds flying about, my favourite of the birds in there were the pelicans. We then got the tram to Victoria peak, I think now is the time to mention that their was hardly a cloud in the sky now, earlier it was a little dull and cloudy. We got to the top and were told by an Aussie couple that they have been waiting 3 days for it to be clear, we felt very lucky. The views were fantastic, you will see because I took a million photos and Ollie took more. I forgot to mention that there was a wax figure of Bruce Lee up there which Ollie got his photo with after a little queue, well you know Japanese tourists and of course Ollie. We headed slowly back to the boat to Kowloon, walked around for quite a while round finding a Toys R Us! Yes we did spend quite a bit of time there. We decided to wonder round the side streets looking at restaurants deciding we weren't that hungry so as it was clear we checked out the laser show again which was actually okay now we could see it. We got some food afterwards, headed to the market and the went to bed as we had a very early start.

Hong Kong Phooey - Arrival in Kowloon, Hong Kong

After our longest flight ever and limited sleep, we were glad to get back on solid ground even if we were a little warm. We got a train and shuttle bus to Nathan Rd in Kowloon (we knew we were in for trouble on a road named Nathan). We thought we saw the hostel we booked on the third floor of a building and headed towards it, this was the start of constant hawking (people on the street trying to sell you things mainly accommodation, suits and watches). Anyway we fought out way past these people and made our way through an indoor market and up some stairs turned out there was more than one. So back down, fighting past more hawkers until we reached the 'Chung King Mansion' where we saw a person who said he would take us to our hostel, lies!!! He took us to another block, telling us they were all the same even though we knew we were in block c, more lies!! We told him that we had paid for about the millionth time (ok maybe a slight exaggeration , but only slight) so we did as brave sir robin (Monty python ref. for you Americans as i know jokes have to be explained to you) and ran away. We found block c and made it to our hostel although it was meant to be on floor 16 and the lift only went to 15 but turned out a bunch were the same hostel. We chilaxed for a bit before wondering down to the harbour as we heard a laser show happened every night at 8 although it got very misty and a little drizzly so we couldn't see the lasers although we got a good view of Hong Kong island and the famous neon lights. We then wondered round to find somewhere to eat for the first time in Asia and found a gem of a place called Hing Phat. We then headed back slowly and crashed out for the night.